You’re right there for some of your clients’ most remarkable and personal moments. Through your natural sense of beauty and attention to detail, you bring people’s visions to life with a few clicks of your trusty camera.
As a creative professional, your portfolio does the talking. It feels counterintuitive to reduce it to words, but a well-crafted resume is crucial for standing out in a competitive industry and landing new clients.
With our freelance photographer resume templates and bonus tips for making a cover letter, you can craft a resume that highlights your project outcomes and customer satisfaction rates, helping boost the tangible value of your portfolio.
What Matters Most: Your Photography Skills & Past Experience
Anyone can grab their phone and snap a picture or two, but not everyone can be a photographer. You’re always honing your skills to make sure that your artistry never fails to impress. But how do you express this in a resume?
Keeping your skills concrete and technical is a great way to show expertise and industry knowledge. Focus on the software and tools you’re proficient in and the specific genres of photography you offer as part of your services.
When someone working on a real estate project sees “real estate photography” on your skills list, they’ll know you’re the one for the job. Listing “good organizational skills,” on the other hand, doesn’t really offer any useful information for readers to resonate with.
9 most popular freelance photographer skills
- Adobe Lightroom
- CaptureOne
- Adobe Photoshop
- Phase One
- Events
- Digital Portraits
- Studio Photography
- Real Estate
- Wedding Photography
Sample freelance photographer work experience bullet points
As a freelance photographer, your responsibilities encompass both producing professional-quality photographs and liaising with clients.
Active listening and communication skills enable you to understand the client’s needs, interpret their creative vision, and make the collaboration pleasant for the client.
To effectively showcase your technical and soft skills, emphasize project outcomes and client satisfaction, always including metrics to promote trust and confidence.
Here are a few examples:
- Captured, edited, and printed high-quality photographs for more than 35 clients, with a 96% client satisfaction rate
- Optimized the post-processing workflow for the photography team by implementing presets and automation tools, reducing editing time by 16%
- Delivered commercial product photographs for an e-commerce website, leading to an 11% increase in sales
- Implemented advanced lighting techniques for a high-end real estate project, contributing to a 27% increase in inquiries
How to Add Certifications to a Freelance Photographer Resume
As a photographer, you know there’s a lot you can do to make the images you produce for your clients shine, from making some refined edits in Photoshop to capturing aerial shots with drones. Having the right certifications to display on your freelance photographer resume can help showcase those added abilities you want to stand out.
The ideal place for your certification section will be underneath your education and photography skills sections. Each certificate you list should include the following information:
- The title of the certification, such as Qualified Drone Photographer (QDP)
- The organization you received the certificate from, such as the Imaging Science Foundation
- The date you received the certificate
- The certificate’s expiration date (if applicable)
What certifications should you put on a freelance photographer resume?
The ideal photography certifications to list will depend on the services you provide. For example, if you’re a freelance crime scene photographer, showcasing that you’re a certified evidence photographer would help you stand out. Here are some of the best photography certifications you can include:
- Certified Professional Photographer (CPP): When you list that you’re a CPP on your freelance photography resume, it showcases that you have well-rounded knowledge in commercial photography. This certification gives you the skills to do everything from wedding photography to capturing images for marketing materials.
- Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in Photoshop: Today’s photographers need to be proficient in tools like Photoshop, which can add finishing touches that make great moments you capture shine. A Photoshop certification will showcase your abilities to adjust exposure or retouch portraits, so they look their best once they reach your clients.
- Total Body Photography (TBP) Certification: Do you want to get into biomedical photography? The TBP certification will showcase your professional abilities to use photography to document key medical events like surgical procedures, diagnoses, injuries, or the progression of diseases.
Some other top certifications for freelance photographers are:
Top 5 Tips for Your Freelance Photographer Resume
- Keep updating
- When applying for a niche job like real estate or fashion photography, it’s important to make relevant skills and photographs the focal point of your resume and portfolio. Show some versatility but imply a main focus and specialty in the specific genre you’re applying for.
- Highlight your technical skills
- Be specific and list the actual software you use and the type of photography you specialize in. For instance, Adobe Lightroom and CaptureOne to show your post-processing skills or studio photography to show proficiency in professional lighting.
- Show, don’t tell
- Client collaboration is indispensable for photographers, but the best way to showcase your skills is to focus on outcomes. For example, indicate the number of successful projects you’ve completed or your customer satisfaction percentage based on past clients.
- Offer proof of skill
- Showcase your technical skills and experience with certifications. Adobe certifications are welcome; The Professional Photographers of America Association offers the CPP; you can get certified in specific hardware or genres like drone or sports photography.
- Emphasize strategy
- Many successful freelancers provide added value by offering strategic advice on design and application. Quantify your achievements by mentioning sales or brand awareness increases as a result of your work.
Freelance creative work is very different from many other professions, but the basics of your resume are very similar. You still need to list education, skills, and certifications succinctly and reserve the most space for your work experience bullet points.
While testimonials are very useful for freelancers, including them on your portfolio rather than your resume is better. That way, your testimonials can have more space to shine without reducing the amount of relevant information you can fit on your one-page resume.
Create a public, online portfolio and link to it at the top of your resume. Using a short, custom URL will keep things looking professional.
Stephen is the co-founder and CEO of BeamJobs. He started his career in data fulfilling the dream of little kids everywhere: working for an insurance company. He then moved on to work in edtech for a company called Chegg before venturing out to start BeamJobs. Things have come a long way after countless “learnings” (fancy word for mistakes), and BeamJobs has now helped 2.5M+ people create their perfect resume. Stephen and BeamJobs have been featured on awesome sites like Business Insider, Chicago Tribune, Dallas News, Baltimore Sun, the Daily Press, Zendesk, HubSpot, and loads more.
